Maxime Legrand, a biology student obsessed with mushrooms, scours the forest every week to study the life forms hiding beneath the soil.
One day, he makes a troubling discovery: a specimen that resembles a small house, a living shelter, as if an invisible presence resided there. Maxime remains, unable to look away. He listens. He observes...
He digs, he digs for several days without respite, then suddenly...
An underground city is revealed to him; a network of galleries inhabited by small creatures. They cultivate underground gardens, process biomaterials, and exchange messages through the root network.
Maxime names these creatures the NลKs, because they only come out after nightfall.
He chose to stay, to observe them patiently, to learn their language, to understand their knowledge, their vision of the living world, and their way of inhabiting the Earth differently.
It bears witness to a deeply moving encounter: a benevolent colony, in symbiosis with its living environment.
Maxime decides to set up a laboratory.
